Let’s say you pay $1/month for a kettle full of water. It’s your water, and you’re free to drink it all. Now, let’s say you also own a tea bag and want to make a cup of tea with it and the water. Can the water company tell you, “Oh no, we said you can DRINK the water. If you want to make tea with your water, the monthly cost for the same kettle full is $2″?
For those not good at understanding analogies, the water is the data every iPhone user’s paying for, and the tea bag is the tethering capability built-in to every modern iPhone.
If ATT wants to at least double my transfer cap with a tethering plan, I might be willing to pay extra for it. Barring that or some other kind of really compelling value-add, I can’t justify paying more than once for the same data transfer. Can you?
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time as I use my now ancient HTC Kaiser WinMo phone. No tethering might be a deal breaker on a new device at this stage of the game. I also found that there are relatively easy ways to enable tethering on the iPhone…

I’m still torn, but I think my next mobile is going to be an iPhone 3G?S?, that’s why this has been on my mind. The other option I’m giving serious consideration is the Samsung Omnia HD. Thoughts on either, or on the state of ridiculous bandwith use restrictions by ISPs?